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How PAY-PER-CLICK Search Engines Work
By Tom Falco
Contributing Writer
Article Date: 10.11.02
The best way to market your websites these days is with pay-per-click
search engines and the best of course is Overture,
previously GoTo.com. Google
is very good, too.
It seems that the major search engines are changing
their rules daily and it is getting harder and harder to
get your site listed. In many cases one must pay and
that does not guarantee being placed at the top of any
one category.
But with Overture.com and other pay-per-click search
engines, you can place yourself at the top and you
regulate how much you want to spend per click.
With a little experimentation, you can find out the
best click through rates and the best terms to use.
We sell custom printed promotional and party items.
We noticed that when we placed our printed cups,
matches, napkins, etc. under the category of
"Retirement Parties," we received lots of clicks, but
no orders for retirement parties.
When we placed the same items under "Proms,"
"Family Reunions," "High School Reunions," and
such, the orders were coming in like wildfire. So of
course we removed our listing under "Retirement
Parties" since it seemed that people were willing to
click on our link out of curiosity, costing us money
each time they clicked, yet they never placed orders.
With pay-per-click we were able to get many pages
and items listed that on the regular search engines
would not have been.
On most search engines, we are at the top with
Post-It Notes, Pens, and other items, but for the
Reunion items or Party supplies we would never be
raised to the top since that is not our major business.
But through the pay-per-click engines, we are at the
top in those categories and it has paid off very nicely.
The best part of Overture.com is that they have major
deals with Yahoo, MSN, and other major search
engines, and the top three listings on Overture are
actually carried over to the other search engines. So
what you have on Overture is also on Yahoo,
MSN, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista and others at the same
time. This is only for the three listings on each category.
Google is partners with AOL among others.
This has helped with our 2002 Calendar promotion. We
were able to place the printed calendars at the top of
the search engines, which enabled us to sell out our
entire stock! When they were sold out, we simply
removed the listings.
Listings start at only .05 per click, which isn't bad.
Depending on your listing and your business type,
.05 could get you to the top in many categories.
You can check your stats daily and see where the
clicks are coming from and how many people are
actually clicking on specific key words or links.
About the Author:
Tom Falco is editor of XpectMore.com
eZine and also owns: http://www.TheDiscountPrinter.com
Visit: http://www.XpectMore.com
for more FREE articles like the above. |
